Page 4 of Fiends and Familiars
I didn’t know if it was the liver treats or if my magic was somehow getting through to the creature, because he cocked his head, a puzzled expression on his face. Random thoughts and emotions washed over my mind, as if they were making their way to me through a thick blanket.
It was a fierce beast, trained to seek, find, and kill. It was confused about why I could see it and how I was managing to communicate with it. And it really liked the liver treats.
“I’ve got more in the truck,” I told the dog-thing. “And I know you’ll like the rib bones as well. Why don’t you let me get you some water and more to eat?”
I tossed the rest of the liver treats into the grass next to the porch, and while the creature ate them, I casually walked up the steps to my door as if this was absolutely an ordinary occurrence to find a strange dog beast on my porch.
The noises the thing was making as it ate the liver treats were setting the hairs at the nape of my neck on end, but I kept my breathing steady and unlocked my door. As soon as I pushed it open, I felt the creature’s attention snap to me once more.
There. I sense it. Master was right.
I stood in the open doorway and faced the creature, not sure if I should slam the door shut and bolt it or not. It curled its lips back again, and I swear its teeth grew longer. The thing hunched down as if it were about to spring and I sucked in a breath, my hand gripping the door.
A hissing noise and the flapping of giant wings rent the silence. Drake descended from the sky, landing on the porch between me and the dog-thing. I froze, unable to retreat inside and leave my vulture friend to fight this thing himself.
I shouldn’t have worried. Drake extended his wings outward, opened his beak, and hissed. I don’t know if it was the sight of the huge bird, the threat of the knife-sharp beak, or the stench of long dead weasel on his breath, but something made the dog-thing take a step backward. He snarled at Drake, then snarled at me.
“Get back,” I told Drake as I prepared to do something I hated—something I’d sworn I’d never do.
Drake hopped aside, and I locked eyes with the dog-thing, but before I could unleash my spell, he vanished.
“Stupid preternatural dog-thing,” I muttered as I scanned my yard to see if he’d just teleported across the street or something. Thankfully none of my neighbors seemed to have been disturbed by my standoff, because out here in the world away from Accident, supernatural beings and magic were supposed to be the stuff of fantasy. Not that I hadn’t been able to explain away all sorts of odd things in the month since I’d bought this house. It was amazing what people believed when the alternative was even more unbelievable.
Deciding that I’d rather relax and eat ribs than go searching for the dog-thing, I went inside. My house wasn’t particularly big. In fact, it was fairly indistinguishable from the other cookie-cutter one-story homes in this neighborhood, but I liked it. It had been a difficult decision to move out of Accident, where my kind of weird was less weird, to out here in the “real” world, where I couldn’t hang with shifters, fae, vampires, and goblins at the local bars. Practicality won out, though. The majority of my clients were outside of Accident and it was a much shorter commute if I lived here.
The real bummer of living here was how isolating the last month had felt. I hadn’t any friends outside of Accident, so I’d thrown myself into my work and was beginning to feel a bit depressed at my lack of a social life. Ishouldgo over to the bar where my youngest sister worked and maybe meet some people, but those darned squirrels had worn me out. Ribs, pajamas, andLadyhawkeit was. Tomorrow was Sunday and family dinner night. That would give me some much-needed interaction with non-feathered, two-legged beings.
True to my word, I threw the rib bones out into the yard in case the dog-thing came back and set a bowl of clean water out for him. The whole time I was eating I kept hearing a scurrying noise in the attic. By the time I started streaming the movie, the scurrying noise was in my kitchen.
Well, Ihadbeen complaining about how lonely I was. I didn’t expect the universe to send me four squirrels, though. I looked over at Drake and he shrugged. That’s when a furry little head peeked around the corner of my sofa at me.
Theywerepretty darned cute, even if they refused to listen to me and had taken up residence in my house without even saying please. Three other heads looked around the sofa and I stared back at them. I had a choice—I could spend the evening chasing these guys down, putting them in a cage and shoving them into the garage, or I could give up and resign myself to the fact that I might have some roommates throughout the winter—in addition to Drake, that is. Just as I’d been too tired to go hunt down the dog-thing, I was too tired to repeat my earlier Keystone Cops performance of running around after squirrels, so I popped an extra bag of popcorn, set a few bowls on the floor, then grabbed the larger bowl for Drake and myself on the couch. It didn’t take my new roommates long to come out of hiding and dig into the popcorn. Once they realized I wasn’t going to snatch them up and stick them in a crate, they relaxed and actually sat down to watch the movie with us.
They were all four gray squirrels, but it was clear that the larger one was the leader of the bunch. The others looked to him frequently, following his lead. He was a little over twenty inches long and looked to be close to two pounds in weight. His bushy tail held more white than the others, and his ears had little black tufts of fur on them. Every now and then he shot me a wary glance, but I didn’t blame him given that we’d all gotten off to a rocky start.
Once the movie was over, I hit pause and addressed my new roommates. “Okay guys, here’s the deal. You can stay and I’ll provide an assortment of nuts and other food for you, but you can’t go trashing my house or getting into the garbage.”
They all chattered in excitement, once again looking toward the big guy for guidance. He turned to me and asked where they were to sleep.
Heck if I knew. There was a spare bedroom, but I liked to keep that available in case one of my friends or family from Accident came to visit and decided to stay the night.
“How about the attic?” I asked, knowing that’s where squirrels tended to make their home. “I can put some old towels up there for you all to nest in.”
The others seemed on board with that, but Big Guy shook his head. It seemed the idea of sleeping in the attic made him nervous. He wanted to sleep in my bedroom.
Great. Drake had already claimed the footboard of my bed as his. I’d tried to kick him out but gave up when I awoke every morning to see the giant vulture perched there. But four squirrels and a vulture?
What the heck. It’s not like I had a sex life to speak of. “Okay, but no running around in the middle of the night. I need to get my sleep, and if you all wake me up, you’re out of the bedroom. Got it?”
Big Guy nodded.
“So…what do I call you?”
The other three squirrels tilted their heads. I wasn’t surprised. Animals often didn’t understand our need to give them names. They seemed to communicate just fine without them, and in all honesty I could speak to them so they knew which one I was talking to. But I liked names. It showed that I respected these animals. And theyweremy roommates, after all.
“Oak, Maple, and Pine.” I pointed to each of the squirrels in turn.
Big Guy held up his little paws and chattered, saying he already had a name but that it could not be spoken.
